Main Liners recall devestation at Boston Marathon

By all accounts the weather Monday was perfect in Boston for the fabled Boston Marathon. But in seconds that perfect day changed into a day of blood and death as two bombs exploded near the finish line in Copley Square.

With three people dead, including a child, and more than 140 injured, some losing their limbs, the horror of that moment hit home with Bryn Mawr Running Co. owner Bob Schwelm. Schwelm, 54, of Media, has run the marathon a dozen times but this year he and his wife were spectators and had been at a party given by a running shoe company at the Lennox Hotel at the finish line about an hour and a half before the explosions.

“It’s tough,” Schwelm said via cellphone as he headed home from Boston on Tuesday. “I was shaken.” He frantically called the friends he had been with at the party but was unable to reach them. Police had cut cellphone service to the area to stop anyone from using a cellphone to set off another bomb, according to published reports.

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Finally, Schwelm determined that his friends were fine. Runners from the Bryn Mawr Running Co., including a store employee, had finished earlier and were not injured, he said.

“Thankfully, our guys were fast and we rolled,” he said. “We were so thankful and we got out. I must have got a hundred phone calls. Everyone frantically calling.”

But for Schwelm and many others, the Boston Marathon will never be the same.

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The sound of thunder and disbelief

Gina Barusevicius said the first blast sounded like a clap of thunder.

“I was in the family meeting area getting my clothes on to get back to the car when I heard the first of the two explosions,” Barusevicius, 41, a dietitian and nutritionist from Media said Monday afternoon. “To me, it sounded like really bad thunder. “Five seconds later the next explosion hit. I looked at my husband and he said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’

“No one really knew what was going on at that point but you could hear people on their phones talking about explosions.”

Barusevicius estimated she had crossed the finish line 45 minutes to an hour earlier to complete her second Boston Marathon.

“I still can’t believe that it happened,” she said. “They are still showing the same feed on TV of the explosions, the glass shattering and the people who were hurt.”

Barusevicius hopped in the car with her family a few minutes after the explosions.

“You couldn’t even go in that direction (toward the finish line) if you wanted to,” she said. “They were directing people away from there and then we started to hear all the sirens.

“Our main priority was to get our little girl in the car. She’s six. We drove back to Cambridge to the place where we’re staying, which is right across the river from where the race finished.

“We were going to stay overnight,” added Barusevicius, “but we’ll see how it goes. If we keep hearing more stuff on TV, maybe we’ll pack up and go.”

King of Prussia resident Elizabeth Lim had finished running in Monday’s Boston Marathon when she heard an explosion and saw a sea of people rushing to and from the scene. Once the explosion went off, Lim said, the initial scene was very chaotic and that she and a friend who was running the race with her had no idea what was happening.

“People were screaming and running,” she said via telephone from Boston approximately four hours after the attack. “We just (kept) hearing sirens.”

Lim said that she and her friend had just finished the race and were beginning to gather their belongings when the blasts occurred.

“My friend was there, like 100 yards from the explosion,” she said. “We were fortunate to have finished already.”

Lim said she and other runners were having difficulty finding information about what had occurred and what was happening in the area.

“We can’t even see the news,” she said. “We were walking by a hotel and we saw the explosions and we just keep hearing the worst things.”

In addition to trying to get information about the attack, Lim said she had also spent much of her time Monday trying to reach friends and family via text messages, but cellphone service has been limited.

“I haven’t had phone service,” she explained. “I’ve just been getting text messages.”

Originally, Lim said she planned to return home on Monday night, but had nowhere to go after the explosions and was unsure about what she was going to do.

“They shut down the airplanes for a while,” Lim said. “We’re still trying to get home.”

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No finish for many

It was the first time Brad Fadem, a 22-year-old Boston College senior from Devon had run in the Boston Marathon.

He didn’t get to finish.

“I was somewhere between a mile or a half away when it happened,” Fadem said. He didn’t hear the explosions. “A lot of spectators were cheering. No one seemed to have heard anything. So many buildings blocked the sound. People were cheering loudly.”

Police stopped Fadem, a friend and other runners with him from continuing the race. At first he didn’t know what happened but word of the explosions soon began to spread.

“We didn’t know the severity or the magnitude of them,” Fadem said.

“My first action was to figure out where my parents and girlfriend and other friends were. They were trying to meet us past the finish line. We wanted to find our loved ones and find out what was going on.” After about 10 or 15 minutes, he was able to contact them and found out that they were safe. It took another hour to find them.

“It’s still shocking to me,” Fadem said. “I think everyone in the Boston area is devastated. it’s all over the news stations. It’s tough to get away from it. I woke up and hoped it would have all been a bad dream. But still the shock hasn’t worn off. The raw emotions, the after effects are setting in as to how close I was and how close my family was. The tragedy of people who lost their lives and were hurt now is just digesting. It was definitely a chaotic afternoon but everything worked out for me and my loved ones.”

However, Fadem plans to run the Boston Marathon again next year.

“Right now people are talking about how incredible next year’s Boston Marathon would be. It would be something special to be a part of.”

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Sidelined but ready for a 2014 return

Michael McGrath, 52, who has run the Boston Marathon nine times also said he would not allow this incident to prevent him from running it again. A runner since 1972, the Havertown resident was sidelined this year by an injury.

“I was extremely upset but in this day and age I don’t think I can say shocked,” said McGrath. He noted we face both domestic and international terrorists and the Boston Marathon is a major event. McGrath, a lawyer, belongs to the Bryn Mawr Running Club, a group affiliated with the Bryn Mawr Running Company. He was able to ascertain that his friend were not injured and had already completed the race because nowadays the runners carry chips with electronic sensors that record their locations every 3.1 miles.

“As far as I know my friends are OK,” McGrath said. “There’s no local casualties we’re aware of. It wouldn’t stop me,” said McGrath, about running in future marathons. “I guess for the same reason that even though airplanes crash I’m not going to stop flying in airplanes.”

“But I’m going to try to be aware,” he said. “Being able to run is very important to me. Most, if not all, marathons are safe. It may be a fluke thing. One incident is too many. I’m confident (they’ll) do everything they can to find out who did it and apprehend the perpetrators. I don’t know we treat the situation differently than any other public event in a large city. Going forward, not changing the character of the event but you’ve got to make it safe. This is terrible, a very unfortunate situation.”

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Fearing for local friends

State Rep. Greg Vitali, D- Delaware County, is also an avid runner. He said that he was shocked by the bombing Monday at the Boston Marathon. He ran that race himself when he was a law student in 1981. Some of his friends from the Bryn Mawr Running Co. ran this year.

“It’s a shame,” said Vitali. “These are my friends.” The first thing he thought about was that the race is like a bell curve and when the bomb went off would be the heaviest part of the race.

“I thought of the thickness of the runners crossing the finish line,” Vitali said. “There would be a thick flow at that time. The second thought I had was wondering if they made an effort to move the finishing clock somewhere else. You train so hard and if you run a good race, you want a time.”

“You wonder, your first thought is it terrorists,” he said. But it could also be a gas main exploding. “You’re injuring people at such a vulnerable time. When you finish a race, you’re exhausted and defenseless.” The Marathon, by it’s very nature would be “very difficult to defend.”

“You’re dealing with 26 miles with spectators wandering off and on the course,” he said. “How can you restrict access and defend against something like that. You’re not going to stop a terrorist.”

“It’s quite, quite shocking,” Vitali said.

Schwelm agreed that runners will not be deterred in following their bliss.

“I don’t think there is any way to protect — you can’t guard every trash can,” Schwelm said. “It will be interesting next year. A lot of people are vowing to run Boston in 2014. You can’t beat us. A lot of people will run out of pride. That is kind of the reaction.”

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Local coaches shocked

Several area track coaches reacted with shock and horror to the bombing.

Tony DeSabato, who coaches track at Friends Central said, “I have run Boston and often go up to watch. My reaction was shock and anger. It is beyond me how anyone could think that killing and maiming innocent people could possibly be an appropriate way to make a statement of any kind. It is beyond explanation.”

“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the families of this tragedy,” said Christopher Avery, from the Haverford School. “The Boston Marathon is one of the signature events in our country and as a track coach with numerous friends that annually participate, it holds a particular place in my heart. I hope that this brings our country together and reminds us to be grateful for every moment. “

Mary Beth Bittles of Agnes Irwin said, “My heart is broken over the senselessness of this attack and the loss of innocense of this wonderful tradition. But runners are a resilient bunch, and we will continue to pound the pavement, and pursue our running challenges. Terrorists won’t stop runners. My prayers go out to all the families who suffered loss or injury.”

Main Line Media Sports editor Editor Bruce Adams, Timothy Logue of Delaware County Daily Times, and Tony Fioriglio of The Times Herald contributed to this report.